Did you find what you were looking for?

Find what you were looking for?

Help us improve AI search results by giving yourfeedback.

From:Department of Children, Disability and Equality

Dear Minister Foley, High Commissioner El Haïry, Deputy Minister Grigaliené, Irish Presidency and Commission colleagues, Policy Makers and Practitioners, but – above all – dear children and young people,

Good morning, I am delighted to see so many of you here today.

In this historic site of Dublin Castle – we are truly bringing together the old with the new.

This is very appropriate, as this conference is about reconsidering the ‘old school’ ways that decisions are made and policy is formed.

And, most importantly, we are doing so by asking children and young people!

I share the views of Minister Foley here.

Ireland has set the bar through both the National Framework and the National Office.

And I am delighted that you will hear more tomorrow from Professor Lundy of UCC about her models of participation.

Youth participation is also an aim shared by the Irish Presidency of the Council and the European Commission.

And it is important to me personally as European Commissioner for Democracy.

Because children and young people are not simply today’s citizens of Europe – they are the leaders of Europe tomorrow.

Their voices must be heard in shaping the democracies that they will inherit.

This is why and because children’s rights are fundamental rights.

The EU’s Charter of Fundamental Rights enshrines this in Article 24: The rights of the child.

This represents the right to protection and care, to express their views freely, to have these views considered when decisions are made that concern them.

And – in all actions relating to children, whether public or private – their best interests must come first.

This right is reinforced by others – from Article 14’s Right to Education to Article 21’s Right to Non-Discrimination.

And the Charter is binding on EU institutions, and on the Member States when they implement EU law.

This makes Article 24 the basis for the Commission’s commitments to the participation, inclusion and protection of children and young people.

And we laid out our plan to deliver on this commitment in the 2021 EU Strategy on the Rights of the Child.

We didn’t develop this on our own – it was developed for children, with children – drawing on feedback from more than 10,000 of them!

The Strategy had several pillars, covering initiatives across participation, inclusion, and protection.

But one of its flagship initiatives was the EU Children’s Participation Platform.

We set this up to respond to an essential part of the Strategy – children’s rights to participate in political and democratic life.

Today’s and tomorrow’s conference reflects the approach of the Strategy and Platform.

Today, you will focus on the places where children and young people are – and how they can be involved in decision-making.

Tomorrow, you will focus on the challenges they face in participating in decision-making.

For my part, I would now like to share with you some of the initiatives under my own portfolio that focus on the participation, inclusion, and protection of children and young people across our Union.

I would like to begin with protection through child-friendly justice – a pillar of the EU Strategy on the Rights of the Child.

It is hard enough to be caught up in a crime and to have to work through it.

Children and young people in the justice system need extra support.

It is imperative that we build a justice system that responds to the rights and needs of children.

We want to ensure that children who are victims, witnesses, or accused of a crime are treated fairly, protected from harm, and supported throughout.

During the five years covered by the first EU Strategy on Victims’ Rights, we have developed a framework of laws to help make this a reality.

Front-and-centre, we adopted a directly applicable EU law that covers a host of family matters across borders (Brussels IIb Regulation).

And at the end of last year, we agreed a revision of the Victim’s Rights Directive – providing more support services than ever before.

Now, our work continues towards the EU’s next Strategy on Victims’ Rights, which I will present later this year.

The Strategy will have a strong focus on children’s rights.

Because when a child becomes a victim, their age must never be a barrier to justice, protection or support.

I look forward to hearing what today’s panel on Children in Justice and Legal Settings discusses, and taking these learnings back to Brussels as we develop our next Strategy.

Now, I would like to turn to participation and inclusion – another pillar of the EU Strategy on the Rights of the Child, and fundamental to the future of our democracies.

Across Europe, young people are granted the right to vote when they turn 16 or 18.

But no-one becomes an informed citizen on the night before their 16th or 18th birthday!

This is why civic education and experiencing democracy must be close to our young citizens, and start in their early years.

As a child in Spain once said to me: “We need to be in all the spaces where policies that directly affect us are designed.”

I agree. There is no doubt in my mind that involving our youngest citizens makes our policies better and democracies stronger.

Participation in our democracies can happen anywhere and everywhere – in families, schools, and communities.

But the European Commission wants to provide a formal and structured way for children and young people to feed into our decision making.

This is why we set up the EU Children’s Participation Platform in 2022.

This Platform connects the ways in which children participate at local, national, and European level.

By bringing together under-18s, we connect with them by hearing from them.

They talk policy with decision-makers – using their rights as EU citizens, and impacting the policies that will affect them longer than it affects us!

Perhaps the biggest policy debate impacting young people these days is one that falls directly under my responsibility – online safety.

Across Europe and beyond, countries are considering or introducing age restrictions for access to social media.

This is why President of the European Commission, President Ursula Von der Leyen, has asked a group of experts to recommend how we might move forward at EU-level.

And, earlier this month, this Special Panel on Online Safety for Children presented its Report.

Children’s voices were again a big part of shaping this Report.

And, from its findings, we could put it this way:

Children don’t have to fit their own seat belts: we have safety-by-design – so online platforms need to show how their services protect against risks.

You can’t sell a car to a child: we are not about to ban children’s access to social media – it’s about when social media can access Europe’s children.

Children can’t have the car keys before they have a licence, and they can’t get a licence under a certain age – so a starting age for social media makes sense.

With all this input and these ideas, the Commission is spending this summer learning from the Report, and thinking about how to act on its recommendations.

For my part, I was in Slovenia just last month to speak with children and young people in a Youth Policy Dialogue on Digital Fairness.

I shared with them the Commission’s ideas for a Digital Fairness Act, which we are currently working on.

We want this Act to better protect all users online.

We don’t want users to be exposed to unfair marketing or addictive design features that exploit them.

And this is why we surveyed nearly 5,000 12-to-17 year olds across the EU to hear their views too.

This proposal is still being developed, so I am really pleased that you will also discuss the digital environment this afternoon, and I look forward to hearing back on what’s discussed.

Clearly, since the first EU Strategy on the Rights of the Child, we have seen positive progress in lots of areas.

And this has had a direct impact on the participation, inclusion, and protection of children and young people across our Union.

I welcome that the Irish Presidency has prioritised this for its programme for the rest of this year.

Because we know that this work must continue – especially when supporting children and young people in challenging situations, which is what today and tomorrow is all about!

This Conference is the first since the EU Children’s Participation Platform was set up, and we hope it won’t be the last!

We want our work to reach all children of all backgrounds.

This means we count on participants to take their ideas away and share them with friends and family.

And to encourage other children and young people to have their say, and to get involved.

We want to continue what we have started, because investing in our children and young people today makes for stronger democracies tomorrow.

This Conference is not only about the rights of children and young people to have their say.

This Conference is about giving children and young people the floor to have their say.

This is your space, and we are your guests.

Today and tomorrow, you will have a workshop tackling one challenge and proposing one tool as a response.

Tomorrow, you will vote on these.

I am really looking forward to hearing what you vote for.

Then the Commission can think about how we might act on your advice!

So allow me to finish by thanking you for all your engagement and energy over the next two days.